2023 ACC Season Preview: Win total bets for North Carolina State, Duke

The ACC has a two-team race at the top of the conference, but a condensed middle of about eight teams tight together, sifting through the middle can create profitable betting opportunities.

Duke was a team that outperformed expectations, winning nine games and smashing its preseason win projections. Now, the team must follow up its best season in over a decade with a far tougher schedule, can the team remain stable?

The opposite can be said for North Carolina State, who underwhelmed in 2023 after being a dark horse College Football Playoff entering the season, but went just 8-5 amidst injuries. However, the team has retooled on offense around quarterback Brennan Armstrong from Virginia and his former offensive coordinator Robret Anae.

Here's how I'm betting both Duke and North Carolina State's win totals.

Duke UNDER 6.5 Wins (-154)

It was a great season in Durham, and there's much to be excited about long term with Mike Elko at the helm, but this is a far different expectations for a team that typically is in the basement of the ACC.

Last season was a dream for Duke, who played in seven one score games and had the second best turnover margin in the country. When there are that many coin flips involved in a teams nine win season, I get a bit nervous of the prospects of another dream-like season.

While the team brings back at quarterback, who passed for nearly 3,000 yards and 20 touchdowns to go with six interceptions while leading the team in rushing, the team faces a daunting schedule. The team draws arguably the top six teams in the conference with four coming on the road. The Blue Devils open at home against Clemson and closes home against Pittsburgh, but have to go on the road against Florida State, Louisville and North Carolina. Off a bye, the team faces North Carolina State at home. Not to mention, the team hosts Notre Dame this season.

All of the games will have Duke as an underdog or maybe a small spread favorite (Pitt), if the Blue Devils lose every single one of those games, they are under with a game to spare. This is arguably the loftiest projection for Duke in over a decade, I need to play against it and bank on some natural regression despite returning a ton of production from last year's team.

North Carolina State OVER 6.5 Wins (-145)

After being the trendy pick to take a run at Clemson in 2022, the shine has worn off of the Wolfpack, after an 8-5 season. But I'm buying the Wolfpack in 2023.

Sure, the team's veteran laden defense has lost some key contributors and has a sub-50% returning production rate, but this is a team that has been in the 94th percentile in SP+ defensive rating since defensive coordinator Tony Gibson has taken over in 2020. This is a system that has overcome some turnover in terms of production.

The Wolfpack 3-3-5 has been a difficult scheme for the ACC to handle, but the offense has been a bit underwhelming, even with a capable signal caller like Devin Leary manning the position. However, last year Leary suffered a midseason shoulder injury that cost him the last handful of games, but head coach Dave Doeren went to a familiar foe to take over for the now Kentucky Wildcats QB Leary in Virginia transfer Brenan Armstrong.

Doeren also tired to jumpstart the offense by hiring Armstrong's former offensive coordinator in Robert Anae, who was most recently at Syracuse. In 2020, Armstrong and Anae teamed up to post the eighth best offense in the country in terms of SP+ rating.

The team brings back three starters on the offensive line and picked up Oregon transfer Jaramillo Dawson from Oregon, this offense has a ton of upside with Anae at the helm.

The schedule also breaks nicely for the Wolfpack, who will be at they very least a small underdog in all four ACC road games against Virginia, Duke, Wake Forest and Virginia Tech while getting the omst difficult games at home against Louisville, Clemson (off a bye), Miami and North Carolina.

While many are eyeing Clemson and Florida State for the ACC, NC State is live to make a run at the top.

Game odds refresh periodically and are subject to change.